The following comments come from Eiji Sato, analyst at Toyo Securities...

- Nintendo needs "killer content" for the Wii U to turn
- Nintendo has 460 billion yen in cash ($4.4 billion) and is prepared to survive a bad sales year or two
- another Wii U price cut is possible

The following comes from Steve Boxer, a game reviewer for The Guardian...

- PS4 and XBox One leaves Nintendo in a "bad place in the console world"
- "If I was Nintendo, I would be thinking very hard about some means of damage limitation."
- Super Mario 3D World is a "very good game with classic Mario-type platform game action, but it doesn't feel like it's something new and fresh."

The following comes from Hirokazu Hamamura, president of Enterbrain...

- What has been happening to the Wii U is very similar to the Nintendo's experience with the 3DS
- strong software titles such as Mario Kart and Monster Hunter ensued and "3DS sales exploded"

The following comes from Tomoaki Kawasaki, senior analyst at IwaiCosmo Securities...

- "Nintendo should broaden its revenue stream in order to grow."
- it may be prudent to make content mobile while preserving Nintendo's style

If that's true, then pretty all companies in the freakin' world (including Sony and MS) should be dead.

Also, bad Wii U sales doesn't that Nintendo will be losing massive amounts of money. That may be true for other campanies, but Nintendo has the 3DS that's selling like crazy and they also make money from the millions of games they sell every week. And they Wii U now becoming an older hardware, so they should be starting making out of the Wii U hardware too.

If bad sales means Nintendo's death, then why the heck did they survived the GameCube era and makings LOTS AND LOTS of money out of it?

Is it MAGIC?

If funny how this guy makes 4.4 billion looks like little money. Brazil took 15 years to decide which new airplane/fighter they would buy. They've decided this year. How much? 36 hightech fighters (plus full transference of technology) for 4.5 bi. That's how important 4.5 billion is.

Nintendo can survive for several console generations with this money, even if they aren't making 1 single dollar. But we know that's not the case and right now Nintendo is not even close to need this money.

^^Well I don't think is about needing but keeping a good image. Even with being able to survive the reputation can be damaged due to poor perception from the market hence the abandonment from third parties.

Um... Nintendo was losing money as a company pretty much entirely because of the Wii U. 3DS profits were essentially being eaten up by the Wii U losses. As they try to make the Wii U a more attractive product (price cuts, bundles, sales, etc.) they are generally losing more money on the hardware. They also are continuously funding software development projects... I think Nintendo burning through their cash reserve in a year or two isn't going to happen considering how conservative Nintendo is though. They can probably squeeze by and eke a profit if they play their cards right, but the company and its investors won't be happy unless the Wii U's fortunes turn.

Not sure what you're talking about when it comes down to cash reserves, but Microsoft has like $50b in cash and has multiple divisions like Windows & Office (esp the latter) making $15b a year. Microsoft could easily burn through 4.4b in a year, and they have done so before because they chose to.

I could see another Monster Hunter being made exclusively for Wii U. It shouldn't be a port of Monster Hunter 4 (3DS), but an entirely new game that utilizes the powerful Wii U hardware - not relying on old assets that's been used on the PS2, Wii, PSP, etc..

Revamp the character creation system. Right now, it's pretty shallow. I'd like to see something on the level of what you see in pro wrestling games, including adjusting their sizes.

Add multiplayer offline support for the main campaign, like how Sega did it with Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 & 2 on the Nintendo Gamecube, which was FOUR players offline. It shouldn't have to be limited to just the Arena mode.

Allow multiple people to play online on ONE Wii U console, like many other games out there (including Mario Kart Wii).

Maybe introduce new game mechanics, like super moves after a meter fills up, or allow for double-, triple-, and quadruple-team moves.

Don't have it be Japan-exclusive. Please.

If Monster Hunter can get Wii U's to feel relevant in Japan, then maybe we'll see more major Japanese support from SNK, Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Namco, Nippon Ichi Soft, etc.. I'm talking about their heavy hitters, like what you'd normally see on Sony and Microsoft consoles, and not most of the stuff we got on the Wii. It seems like many western game companies won't support Nintendo no matter what, but I'm hoping that some of them will at least consider some Nintendo game consoles as gamers too, and shouldn't be completely ignored.

Considering Sony managed to survive their money troubles from the last gen, and still seeing troubles this gen (with the PSV) I find it hard to believe Nintendo, who's made money pretty much every year of their existance will fall that easily.

Also...

robometal cowboy wrote:
- it may be prudent to make content mobile while preserving Nintendo's style

Is this another 'Nintendo needs to make iCrap games' claim? I still fail to see how asking 99 cents for a real game is gonna make Nintendo any money! Seriously, give it a rest already with this!

Man... being an analyst really is the best & easiest job in the world, you vomit any random opinions, distort facts or invent them then you just go on & say what you want! There you are an anal-yst in all its "glory"... if they got whipped each time they are wrong, ther wouldn't be any anal-yst in the world!

More important than getting Wii U out of the red and into black is repairing Nintendo's reputation in the console space. They keep getting more and more irrelevant. If they continue like this there won't be anyone left to buy whatever they do next. It doesn't matter if they learn their lesson and build an amazing competitive platform if no one trusts them to make it a success. It might not be too late but Iwata needs to get the ball rolling.

ridleysaria wrote:More important than getting Wii U out of the red and into black is repairing Nintendo's reputation in the console space. They keep getting more and more irrelevant. If they continue like this there won't be anyone left to buy whatever they do next. It doesn't matter if they learn their lesson and build an amazing competitive platform if no one trusts them to make it a success. It might not be too late but Iwata needs to get the ball rolling.

It'll be another rough year, but we can only wait and see how each console rolls out. Since it seems a little barren due to the fact most expected games are still going to have 360/PS3 releases. E3 of next year needs to mark the future of gaming more than ever because it isn't clear what new boundaries await us.

The one point I will bring up, that will get blasted, is that Nintendo is in a very good position currently due to the fact that it creates the only console that does not have an annual fee to play on-line. I am not imply every Nintendo game should have on-line play, in fact I feel most should not, but that can be a large selling point to consumers. I feel the merging of the 3DS and Wii U into the NNID is a good start, although late, but they need to really focus on their digital distribution. Having sales, lowering prices, all will create impulse buys. Going to the eShop and seeing 1 to 2 new titles each week doesn't habituate consumers to go there consistently. I am not saying massive price cuts, but taking a game that is normally $5 and dropping the price to $2 or $3 will create impulse buys. Nintendo has the best library out there, but asking $5 for NES baseball is simply outrageous in today's market.

If that's true, then pretty all companies in the freakin' world (including Sony and MS) should be dead.

Also, bad Wii U sales doesn't that Nintendo will be losing massive amounts of money. That may be true for other campanies, but Nintendo has the 3DS that's selling like crazy and they also make money from the millions of games they sell every week. And they Wii U now becoming an older hardware, so they should be starting making out of the Wii U hardware too.

If bad sales means Nintendo's death, then why the heck did they survived the GameCube era and makings LOTS AND LOTS of money out of it?

Is it MAGIC?

If funny how this guy makes 4.4 billion looks like little money. Brazil took 15 years to decide which new airplane/fighter they would buy. They've decided this year. How much? 36 hightech fighters (plus full transference of technology) for 4.5 bi. That's how important 4.5 billion is.

Nintendo can survive for several console generations with this money, even if they aren't making 1 single dollar. But we know that's not the case and right now Nintendo is not even close to need this money.

Numbers are way off... They have over 12 billion in cash, assets, etc. they aren't going anywhere.

ZSaberLink wrote:Um... Nintendo was losing money as a company pretty much entirely because of the Wii U. 3DS profits were essentially being eaten up by the Wii U losses. As they try to make the Wii U a more attractive product (price cuts, bundles, sales, etc.) they are generally losing more money on the hardware. They also are continuously funding software development projects... I think Nintendo burning through their cash reserve in a year or two isn't going to happen considering how conservative Nintendo is though. They can probably squeeze by and eke a profit if they play their cards right, but the company and its investors won't be happy unless the Wii U's fortunes turn.

Not sure what you're talking about when it comes down to cash reserves, but Microsoft has like $50b in cash and has multiple divisions like Windows & Office (esp the latter) making $15b a year. Microsoft could easily burn through 4.4b in a year, and they have done so before because they chose to.

Ninty doesn't have the overhead that Microsoft does. M$ is an absurdly large company,... Nintendo by comparison is tiny.... Nintendo might be one of the largest video game companies, but it's peanuts compared to the two conglomerates (Microsoft/Sony)

DBPanterA wrote:The one point I will bring up, that will get blasted, is that Nintendo is in a very good position currently due to the fact that it creates the only console that does not have an annual fee to play on-line. I am not imply every Nintendo game should have on-line play, in fact I feel most should not, but that can be a large selling point to consumers. I feel the merging of the 3DS and Wii U into the NNID is a good start, although late, but they need to really focus on their digital distribution. Having sales, lowering prices, all will create impulse buys. Going to the eShop and seeing 1 to 2 new titles each week doesn't habituate consumers to go there consistently. I am not saying massive price cuts, but taking a game that is normally $5 and dropping the price to $2 or $3 will create impulse buys. Nintendo has the best library out there, but asking $5 for NES baseball is simply outrageous in today's market.

Ninty's only hurdle is price and software. The software will come. The price will come down as well

ridleysaria wrote:More important than getting Wii U out of the red and into black is repairing Nintendo's reputation in the console space. They keep getting more and more irrelevant. If they continue like this there won't be anyone left to buy whatever they do next. It doesn't matter if they learn their lesson and build an amazing competitive platform if no one trusts them to make it a success. It might not be too late but Iwata needs to get the ball rolling.

What's this "competitive platform" you speak of? Is this a way to say they need to join the horsepower race?

Would you pay $600 + for a Nintendo console? If Nintendo joined the horsepower race, they would have by far the most expensive console. Ninty's biggest market is families. How would an extremely expensive console work out for the family gamer who buys systems based on a budget?

Just browsing a site like NeoGAF is the best argument Nintendo could make to not join the horsepower race... Nintendo would effectively have a ridiculously expensive console without a market. The family gamer (their biggest market) would never buy one, it's too expensive, and the market you are trying to target with a spec beast thinks your IP's are immature.

Nintendo only has two problems with the Wii U. Not enough exclusives just yet and the system is a bit too expensive for an impulse buy. Both of those will be solved with time.